Marc Bryant v. Mike McDonald

MEMORANDUM

Marc Anthony Bryant appeals the district court’s denial of his petition for habe-as corpus. 28 U.S.C. § 2254 . We affirm.

Bryant, an African-American, asserts that the district court erred when it denied habeas corpus relief on his claim that his confrontation and due process rights un der the United States Constitution were violated when the California state courts did not permit him to submit evidence that a witness had used a vile racial epithet when interviewed by the police. We disagree.

On this record, considering clearly established Supreme Court law, we cannot say that no fairminded jurist could decide that the United States Constitution was not violated by the exclusion of evidence of a single-use of a racial epithet by an outraged homeowner whose son had been beaten and robbed in her home while she was away. Although a criminal defendant does have a right to engage in cross-examination to show that a witness is biased, that is subject to trial judges’ “wide latitude ... to impose reasonable limits on such cross-examination based on concerns about ... prejudice.” Here, the exclusion of evidence of a single use of the racial epithet was not “ ‘arbitrary or…